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Five + 1 Things your ophthalmologist should tell you

Five + 1 Things your ophthalmologist should tell you (while
they don’t usually)

Revelations of common myths about your eye

It has been five long years that I am bespectacled and every
time I visit my eye doctor, I come home with a disappointment. No matter how
frequently or how infrequently I get my eye checked up, it always turns out
that I need more powerful glasses. Being a girl I hate the fact that I have to
wear specs the rest of my life. More heart rendering is the fact that instead
of recovering, the ability of my eyes to see clearly is decreasing every day. (Will I get blind one day?) I wanted to
know why and ended up having an hour long chat with an eye surgeon who lives
nearby my place. After the chat I feel
like never visiting my old ophthalmologist again. I hate her now. I am already suffering with eye problems but I don’t
want others too. So here I am, sharing the knowledge I gained, so that you know
what to ask for while getting your eye checked up. The following are the myths
I had or my friends had and the truths as told by my new neighbour – Dr.
Bhattacharya. (Now if you never had the myths that I had, don’t look at me in
disgust, people may think silly at times)

1.We go to visit the eye doctor usually at an
older age and end up saying –“Playing too much video game ruined my eyes” or “I used to watch TV from the chair closest to it, now I am ruined for the
same” or “The teacher’s bad handwriting ruined my eyes”. Well, no way can the
above sentences be true. As the doctor said, and as we all had studied in class
VIII physics that we have eye problems because the images which were supposed
to be formed on the retina (imagine it to be like a tiny curtain within the eye
ball) get formed in front of it or
behind it but not on it. And that’s why we see the stuffs as smaller or larger
but not as their actual size. (See your old science book for further details,
don’t expect me to explain any further as I am only here to clear the myths and
not the concepts :-P ) . Now this is a syndrome that can’t be created by itself after watching much TV or playing much e-games
or even studying too much. If you are
myopic or hypermetropic it’s
because you were born that way.

Parents usually don’t realize that their
kids might have eye troubles. When kids insist to get a closer view while
watching TV, parents think that they like it that way. The kids never realize
because they think everyone else sees the world like they do. It’s when they
get their usual seats rotated in the classroom that they realize that they can’t
see the written words of the blackboard clearly
when they sit either on the first bench or on the last bench. That’s why it
takes us from 7-15 years or so to tell our parents that we need to get our eye
checked up. If your kid has a similar problem, you better take them to an eye
clinic.

Now don’t feel bad and think that you are “defective by default”. You are not.
Bhattacharya Sir explains this quite in a funny way – “An Ostrich’s egg and a
Hen’s egg may be larger and smaller respectively than a Duck’s egg, but
nevertheless they are eggs. “

2.Every time I used to go to my previous
Ophthalmologist she used to say, “You need so much power, I am afraid, I
suggest glasses of lower power, so
that you can adjust with it from the
first day itself”. Now this is where she was wrong, as said by Dr.
Bhattacharya. As a result I adjusted with my new glasses pretty well at the end
of the day but my eyes still could not see things clearly (I need cylindrical
power too) and faced stresses. Consequently I ended up needing more power on my
next visit. She again decreased it and the cycle continued. Recently I realized
that in one year the power I need increased a lot. Now a fluctuation (increase
or decrease) of 0.75 is considered
normal by doctors. Unfortunately mine wasn’t.

Moral of the story: Next time your doctor
says the same way mine did; tell him/her to prescribe you 6 by 6 power. Now 6 by 6 is a ratio which means the power
you need to see things just like anyone else with normal eyesight does. (It is called 6 by 6 because it enables you
to see the alphabet chart in the eye
clinics clearly from a distance of 6 ft.)

Unfortunately I was given 5/6 so I still
have problems while trying to read words on the class blackboard.

3.Eyelid
swellings (called sty when it is
major) is a problem I started having from a few months. I had eyelid swellings
thrice or four times in a period of six months. Doctor said it’s because I need
more power. Friends said it is
infectious and I should wash my hands with sanitizers before touching
anyone.

Uncle Bhattacharya says, “It’s so not.” It
is not infectious and is a characteristic of a person just like
his/her soft skin or thick hair etc. It is not directly related to the power
you need but indirectly it holds true. When you have trouble seeing with your
eye or you have dirt in your eye you rub it. You rub it so hard that it leaves
your eyes red and the eyelids lose their outer skin (epidermis, if I am not wrong). Now when new skin is formed they
might be formed in a slightly larger amount than required. As a result a tear gland is blocked and you have eyelid swellings.

Moral of the story: You should wash your eyes regularly not to let dirt stay. Massaging eyelids softly can open blocked pores if any.

4.Eye
Surgery: For squint eye if you
undergo a surgery, all they do is cut and loosen the muscle tissues holding your
eye ball so as to bring the black part of the eye ball (pupil) to the middle position. Scary.

Scarier it is if you want a laser treatment (LASIK) for your eye, to adjust your power permanently. While doing
that they cut a tiny part of your cornea.
Then they expose your eye to laser beams which cut the lens inside your eye ball tangentially at parts so that (fills me
with dread even while writing this) the image formed falls on the retina. The
cut part of the cornea is again fitted into its place. (Ewww!)

5.Contact
lens are advised for cosmetic
purpose (i.e. if you want to look good, and avoid the marks of your spectacles)
and for comfort too. While wearing specs you have to lift your head or turn
left and right to see things clearly that are not in front of you. This is
because spectacles are so made that the area near its boundaries doesn’t have
the same power as the middle portion. But contact lens covers the whole cornea
and as a result you can just roll your eyes in whichever direction and see
things clearly. Advantages are many but their disadvantages are that you can
wear them continuously for maximum 8
hours. They come costly for those who have cylindrical power, and they are
to be changed every year. They are
to be kept in a liquid solution
which doctor gives you.

Common myth is that if you wear contact
lens your eyes will itch. It only
itches if dirt gets its way in and
this is because spectacles protect
your eyes to some extent from dirt or any other particles that, in its absence,
would have hit they eye directly while it ain’t so in the case of contact
lenses.

6.Tear
glands are located behind the outer part of each upper lid too along with the corners
near the nose.

There is no moral to this point. I didn’t
know this, wondered if you do.

This is all I understood in an hour of time
while talking to the first doctor I liked. Correct me if I am wrong. I am all
ears (read: eyes). J

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